Barbara Lekberg

Barbara Lekberg was born as Barbara Ann Hult on March 19, 1925, in Portland, Oregon.[1] Her mother was music teacher Mildred Anderson, and her father was in the family lumber business, Melvin Hult.[1] She spent her early childhood in Oregon, and later in Illinois and Iowa.[1]

Lekberg attended University of Iowa, studying sculpture under Humbert Albrizio, Philip Guston, and Mauricio Lasansky.[2] She graduated in 1946 with a B.A. degree in sculpture, and in 1947 with a M.A. degree in art history.[1] She moved to New York City in the late 1940s.[3] Lekberg studied at The Clay Club (now known as the SculptureCenter), under Sahl Swarz and learned how to weld steel sculptures.[1]

Her first solo exhibition was in 1959 at the SculptureCenter.[4] She made large figurative metal sculptors, often involving draped fabrics.[4] Lekberg taught classes at the University of the Arts, from 1981 to 2001.

She was a member of the National Academy of Design.[5] Lekberg was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in fine arts two times (1957, 1959).[6]

In 1956, she married Victor Tamerlis, a rare-books dealer and together they lived in Greenwich Village.[1] They had a daughter born in 1962, Zoe Tamerlis Lund.[1] The short film Zoe Rising (2014), documented their daughter's life through the memories of Barbara Lekberg.[7]

Lekberg died on February 14, 2018, in a nursing home in the Bronx, after struggling with Alzheimer's disease.[1]